Military Advances During The Industrial Revolution

Military Advancements

Ryan Prete

US History

Norris

4/11/2023

The industrial revolution is said to be a great time for the world. It created many new machines and devices for a better life, but it also created weapons of mass destruction to make war much deadlier than it was before the industrial revolution. Even with the medical advancements of the industrial revolution, WWI was the deadliest war in the world with 20 million deaths, due to the industrial revolution creating weapons of mass devastation and much deadlier conditions. The industrial revolution created mass production which allowed both sides of the war to mass produce weapons, gas, and ammo. These new weapons, like machine guns, made the war turn into a stalemate. The

The armies never ran out of ammo because the new factory machinery was able to mass produce ammo as fast as they were using it. This mass production allowed the war to happen on a huge scale. People who didn’t have much experience fighting were thrown into the war. The surplus of people fighting in the war leads to battles happening in towns and cities. The town and city battles caused about half of the deaths in WWI to be civilian deaths. Also, the new machinery produced from the industrial revolution allowed people to make much deadlier and more lethal weapons to use against their enemies like planes and tanks. Even with the medical advancements of the industrial revolution, WWI was the deadliest war in the world with 20 million deaths, due to the industrial

When fighting in WWI they used the fighting technique of digging trenches to hide in. This technique forced the war into a stalemate because whenever an army would try to advance they would get mowed down by machine guns. Machine guns were created during the industrial revolution and they revolutionized warfare. The way armies would advance using trench warfare was simply just to run as fast as they could to the next spot, but with the creation of machine guns, this turned out to be a slaughter. The soldiers would get up and run but the machine guns; with 450-600 rounds per minute, were able to just mow them down. One German machine-gunner was recorded as saying there hadn’t even been a need to aim. Machine guns were able to be mass-produced in factories during the war which led to them being seen in almost every fight. Army would put machine gun posts up in protected areas letting the machine gun gunners be able to just spray anyone they see without anyone really contesting them. At the beginning of the war, machine guns were just used on the battlefield at machinegun posts, but later on in the war machine guns were found attached to planes and warships. The planes were able to fly by and do gunning runs with the machine guns. The warships were also able to fire barrages of bullets at planes and people on the shoreline before their army’s got to the shoreline. Machine guns